If you are a user of Internet Explorer, on thing you must be constantly aware of are ActiveX controls. While they have the ability to provide great functionality, they are also a great way for malware to exploit your system. To help protect against known ActiveX threats, you can use AxBan.
AxBan is a free tool which will prevent known malicious ActiveX components from running on your computer. While many security programs claim to protect against ActiveX threats, few actually do an adequate job because users (many times) will override the security warnings.
The only way to be 100% safe from ActiveX exploits is to use an alternate browser, such as Firefox. However, if this is not an option for you, AxBan may be something you want to look at.
Jason Faulkner is the man who brings you our daily tips. He is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
ActiveX is recognised as a serious security flaw for the Internet Explorer suite of Browsers (incl. Maxthon and other variants). Firefox (or Chrome)are representative of a much more secure environment and with the IE Tab Firefox extension those [annoying!] sites that “require” IE are mitigated. ( Though IE Tab will *still* permit the use of ActiveX
To further mitigate some of the impact of the IE security flaws suggest checking out Sandboxie ( http://www.sandboxie.com ), Sandboxie allows IE to lauch and run in a “Sandboxed” environment and can actuallly alleviate many of the issues caused by the use of Internet Explorer.